Low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters

ABSTRACT

A computing device for low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters having a network interface controller and dual Wi-Fi adapters. Programmable instructions cause the processor to establish, using the network interface controller, a streaming multimedia session; receive streaming multimedia in the streaming multimedia session from a Wi-Fi access point using the first wireless network adapter; and forward at least a portion of the received streaming multimedia to a plurality of wireless endpoint devices via the second wireless network adapter.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent applicationSer. No. 62/483,286, titled “LOW-LATENCY MULTIMEDIA USING DUAL WIRELESSADAPTERS” filed on Apr. 7, 2017, and is also a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/336,745 titled “LOW-LATENCY MULTIMEDIAUSING DUAL WIRELESS ADAPTERS”, filed on Oct. 27, 2016, which claimspriority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 62/367,930,titled “LOW-LATENCY MULTIMEDIA USING DUAL WIRELESS ADAPTERS” filed onJul. 28, 2016, the entire specification of which is incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Art

The disclosure relates to the field of multimedia computing devices, andmore particularly to the field of wireless multimedia computing devicesrequiring low latency.

Discussion of the State of the Art

It is commonplace to stream various multimedia content to one or moredevices from a single computing device. For example, a “smart TV” mayoperate LINUX™ (or a variant of LINUX™ such as ANDROID′) and may displayhigh-definition video on the smart TV and stream various channels ofaudio to audio playback devices (some on the Smart TV and some separatefrom it). Or, a user of a mobile device may wish to watch a video on thedevice while having the audio streamed to and played back from aplurality of wireless speakers. In another example, a media computingdevice may operate using an operating system such as ANDROID′ but has nobuilt-in user interface; rather, it serves virtual screens to mobiledevices, each of which has a full operating system user interface thatcan interact wirelessly with the media computing device (which may be,for example, an HDMI “stick” that plugs into an HDMI port of atelevision).

In all of these use cases, low latency networking is a critical successfactor. Even slight latency can cause synchronization problems, poormultimedia playback due to jitter or irregular playback speeds, and thelike. For demanding low-latency applications where wireless networkingis used, any means of reducing the latency brings immediateuser-sensible benefits.

What is needed, then, is a means for providing reliable, verylow-latency wireless networking, particularly for use with mobiledevices, smart TVs, and wireless speakers.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, the inventor has conceived and reduced to practice, in apreferred embodiment of the invention, a system and various methods forlow-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters. The followingnon-limiting summary of the invention is provided for clarity, andshould be construed consistently with embodiments described in thedetailed description below.

To address the problem of low latency that was described above, dualwireless adapters are provided in a computing device. A first wirelessadapter connects to a Wi-Fi access point (WAP) and acts as a member of a“normal” Wi-Fi network. Using the first wireless adapter, the computingdevice is able to access the Internet, for example to access one of themany media streaming services (e.g., NETFLIX™, HULU™, and the like). Thesecond wireless adapter acts as a hotspot for direct connections tolocal devices that require low latency. Common examples of such devicesare wireless speakers, mobile devices that host virtual screens of thecomputing device, and game controllers. By maintaining directconnections with these latency-sensitive devices (more accurately, theapplications used on these devices tend to be latency-sensitive; forexample, a degree of latency in streaming audio to a set of wirelessspeakers is easily detected by the human ear), the second wirelessadapter can optimize the packet traffic going to these devices whilealso keeping all other unrelated traffic (which would be substantial onthe first wireless adapter connected to the WAP), thereby minimizinglatency to these devices to the maximum extent possible.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a computing devicefor low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters is disclosed,comprising: a processor; a memory; a network interface controller; afirst wireless network adapter connected to the network interfacecontroller and to a Wi-Fi access point; a second wireless networkadapter connected to the network interface controller and directly viaWi-Fi to a plurality of wireless endpoint devices; and a plurality ofprogramming instructions stored in the memory and operating on theprocessor, wherein the plurality of programming instructions, whenoperating on the processor, cause the processor to: establish, using thenetwork interface controller, a streaming multimedia session; receivestreaming multimedia in the streaming multimedia session from the Wi-Fiaccess point using the first wireless network adapter; and forward atleast a portion of the received streaming multimedia to the plurality ofwireless endpoint devices via the second wireless network adapter.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, a computing devicefor low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters is disclosed,comprising a first wireless adapter connected to a Wi-Fi access point; asecond wireless adapter connected directly to a plurality of wirelessdevices; and an operating system comprising programming instructionsstored in the memory and operating on the processor and configured to:receive streaming multimedia via a wireless network from a media source,using the first wireless network adapter; and send at least a subset ofthe streaming multimedia at least one of the plurality of wirelessdevices using the second wireless network adapter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

The accompanying drawings illustrate several embodiments of theinvention and, together with the description, serve to explain theprinciples of the invention according to the embodiments. It will beappreciated by one skilled in the art that the particular embodimentsillustrated in the drawings are merely exemplary, and are not to beconsidered as limiting of the scope of the invention or the claimsherein in any way.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system architecturefor low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, according to apreferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an alternate exemplary systemarchitecture for low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters,according to a preferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method forlow-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, according to apreferred embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary logical architecturefor a client device, according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an exemplary architectural arrangementof clients, servers, and external services, according to an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 7 is another block diagram illustrating an exemplary hardwarearchitecture of a computing device used in various embodiments of theinvention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system architecturefor low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, illustratingthe use of a single hardware controller operating multiple radioantennas.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method forlow-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, describing the useof multiple antennas to communicate on different radio channels orfrequencies.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventor has conceived, and reduced to practice, in a preferredembodiment of the invention, computing device for low-latency multimediausing dual wireless adapters.

One or more different inventions may be described in the presentapplication. Further, for one or more of the inventions describedherein, numerous alternative embodiments may be described; it should beappreciated that these are presented for illustrative purposes only andare not limiting of the inventions contained herein or the claimspresented herein in any way. One or more of the inventions may be widelyapplicable to numerous embodiments, as may be readily apparent from thedisclosure. In general, embodiments are described in sufficient detailto enable those skilled in the art to practice one or more of theinventions, and it should be appreciated that other embodiments may beutilized and that structural, logical, software, electrical and otherchanges may be made without departing from the scope of the particularinventions. Accordingly, one skilled in the art will recognize that oneor more of the inventions may be practiced with various modificationsand alterations. Particular features of one or more of the inventionsdescribed herein may be described with reference to one or moreparticular embodiments or figures that form a part of the presentdisclosure, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specificembodiments of one or more of the inventions. It should be appreciated,however, that such features are not limited to usage in the one or moreparticular embodiments or figures with reference to which they aredescribed. The present disclosure is neither a literal description ofall embodiments of one or more of the inventions nor a listing offeatures of one or more of the inventions that must be present in allembodiments.

Headings of sections provided in this patent application and the titleof this patent application are for convenience only, and are not to betaken as limiting the disclosure in any way.

Devices that are in communication with each other need not be incontinuous communication with each other, unless expressly specifiedotherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with eachother may communicate directly or indirectly through one or morecommunication means or intermediaries, logical or physical.

A description of an embodiment with several components in communicationwith each other does not imply that all such components are required. Tothe contrary, a variety of optional components may be described toillustrate a wide variety of possible embodiments of one or more of theinventions and in order to more fully illustrate one or more aspects ofthe inventions. Similarly, although process steps, method steps,algorithms or the like may be described in a sequential order, suchprocesses, methods and algorithms may generally be configured to work inalternate orders, unless specifically stated to the contrary. In otherwords, any sequence or order of steps that may be described in thispatent application does not, in and of itself, indicate a requirementthat the steps be performed in that order. The steps of describedprocesses may be performed in any order practical. Further, some stepsmay be performed simultaneously despite being described or implied asoccurring non-simultaneously (e.g., because one step is described afterthe other step). Moreover, the illustration of a process by itsdepiction in a drawing does not imply that the illustrated process isexclusive of other variations and modifications thereto, does not implythat the illustrated process or any of its steps are necessary to one ormore of the invention(s), and does not imply that the illustratedprocess is preferred. Also, steps are generally described once perembodiment, but this does not mean they must occur once, or that theymay only occur once each time a process, method, or algorithm is carriedout or executed. Some steps may be omitted in some embodiments or someoccurrences, or some steps may be executed more than once in a givenembodiment or occurrence.

When a single device or article is described herein, it will be readilyapparent that more than one device or article may be used in place of asingle device or article. Similarly, where more than one device orarticle is described herein, it will be readily apparent that a singledevice or article may be used in place of the more than one device orarticle.

The functionality or the features of a device may be alternativelyembodied by one or more other devices that are not explicitly describedas having such functionality or features. Thus, other embodiments of oneor more of the inventions need not include the device itself.

Techniques and mechanisms described or referenced herein will sometimesbe described in singular form for clarity. However, it should beappreciated that particular embodiments may include multiple iterationsof a technique or multiple instantiations of a mechanism unless notedotherwise. Process descriptions or blocks in figures should beunderstood as representing modules, segments, or portions of code whichinclude one or more executable instructions for implementing specificlogical functions or steps in the process. Alternate implementations areincluded within the scope of embodiments of the present invention inwhich, for example, functions may be executed out of order from thatshown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverseorder, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understoodby those having ordinary skill in the art.

Conceptual Architecture

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing device 100capable of low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters,according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. According to theembodiment, a computing device 100 typically comprises at least a memory11 and a processor 12 (as described below, referring to FIG. 4),configured to operate a software operating system, for example anoperating system (OS) 120 drawn from the set including (but not limitedto) ANDROID™, APPLE IOS™, WINDOWS™, and various forms of LINUX™.

According to the embodiment, computing device 100 may use a dualwireless adapter configuration to minimize latency for latency-sensitiveapplications. For example, according to the embodiment computing device100 comprises a first wireless adapter 101 a configured to connectwirelessly to a Wi-Fi access point (WAP) 112 or similar wireless radiocommunication, for example wireless adapter 101 a may be configured toutilize a cellular wide-area network (WAN), and via the WAP to theInternet 110 to communicate with a plurality of multimedia streamingsources 111. First wireless adapter 101 a operates internally in anormal way, via a network stack of OS and in particular via transportlayer 103, network layer 102 and session layer 104.

Further according to the embodiment, computing device 100 may furthercomprise a second wireless network adapter 101 b that also interoperatesvia the OS network stack 102. Second wireless adapter 101 b may connectdirectly with a plurality of mobile devices 113 a-n and a plurality ofwireless audio playback devices 114 a-n. Second wireless adapter 101 btherefore acts as a wireless hotspot connected to devices performinglatency-sensitive applications. Computing device 100 may furthercomprise a media management subsystem 107 that manages media content.

According to the embodiment, a wide variety of hardware arrangements maybe utilized to facilitate the operation of dual wireless networkadapters 101 a, 101 b. For example, a single wireless network hardwarecontroller may operate multiple antennas, as is common in multiple-inputand multiple-output (MIMO) hardware arrangements, as described ingreater detail below (referring to FIG. 8). This is commonly used toincrease bandwidth and speed using multipath propagation or spatialmultiplexing typically combined with orthogonal frequency-divisionmultiplexing (OFDM) or orthogonal frequency division multiple access(OFDMA), but may also be used to communicate with multiple network hostsor endpoints (such as WAP 112 and a plurality of mobile devices 113 a-n,as described above) in a practice known as “multihoming”, for example byutilizing separate antennas to communicate on different wireless radiofrequencies or channels.

Another exemplary arrangement may utilize multiple distinct wirelessradios each with their own interface controller, for example as iscommonly used in mobile device design for smartphones or tablets, or asin a personal computer with multiple network interface controllers(NICs), such as multiple WiFi hardware expansion cards. Mobile devicescommonly utilize separate WiFi and cellular radio interfaces, allowingthem to connect simultaneously to both local and wide-area networks asneeded, for example to improve user experience by reducing network losswhile in motion (for example, if a user moves out of range of a WiFi LANto which they are connected, the mobile device may automatically switchto using a cellular WAN for the network session). When using multipleNICs, software operated by the operating system of the computing device100 may process the different connections and optionally virtualize theminto a single network by bridging the two connections internally foreasier low-latency communication (for example, so that all networkendpoints accessible via either NIC are visible to softwaresimultaneously, without needing to select a particular NIC, network, orsubnet). It should be appreciated that while reference may be made toparticular hardware arrangements for multiple wireless adapters sucharrangements are exemplary and provided to describe the overall functionin a clear manner, and that a wide variety of arrangements and hardwarecombinations may be utilized according to the embodiments.

A third exemplary arrangement may be a wireless network interfacecontroller (NIC) that operates a single wireless radio, that isconfigured to operate on multiple channels within a specific frequencyband. This may be accomplished through a variety of multiple-accessnetworking approaches, and enables the use of multiple channels on asingle frequency band to communicate with different endpoints. Forexample, in an 802.11n WiFe network, all communication occurs in thenominal 2.4 GHz frequency band, but multiple channels are available.Utilizing more than one channel may enable a single NIC and radio tocommunicate independently with multiple access points, or with an accesspoint and a plurality of devices on a different channel, or othercomplex network arrangements.

According to the embodiment, media management subsystem 107 may receivestreaming media from first wireless adapter 101 a via session layer 104,and process the streaming media. Media management subsystem 107 may thenidentify a subset of the streaming media that is to be deliveredwirelessly to latency-sensitive devices 113, 114. The selected mediasubset may then be sent via session layer 104 and so forth to secondwireless adapter 101 b, which then transmits the selected streamingmedia to one or more of mobile devices 113 a-n and wireless audioplayback devices 114 a-n. It will be appreciated by one having ordinaryskill in the art that various arrangements of media streaming via secondwireless adapter 101 b are envisioned with the scope of the invention.For example, in one exemplary arrangement a high-definition video streammay be received along with several channels of audio; thehigh-definition video would be viewed on an HDMI display device 115connected via an HDMI interface controlled by HDMI controller 108, suchas a television or computer monitor, while the audio channels would beeither played (optionally) as native audio of computing device 100 andone or more wireless audio devices 114 a-n, each of which receivesappropriate audio channels from media management subsystem 107 viasecond wireless adapter 101 b. In another exemplary arrangement, virtualscreen driver 105 may operate a plurality of virtual (logical)interactive software interfaces (“virtual screens”) and may present atleast a portion of these screens for interaction via the plurality ofmobile devices 113 a-n communicating via second wireless adapter 101 b.

The operating system of computing device 100 may generally have a “homescreen” or similar primary environment that may be used by a user tointeract with various hardware or software features and functions ofcomputing device 100. Alternatively, the OS may provide a plurality oflogical desktops or other virtual screens to users via mobile devices113 a-n. To facilitate user interaction, virtual screen driver 105 maylisten for connections via a network or physical connection from aplurality of mobile devices 113 a-n (such as, for example including butnot limited to, a tablet computing device or smartphone), and maypresent a virtual screen derived from native OS graphics layer 106 to adevice after connecting. A user may then interact with his mobile devicenormally using whatever means are available according to the particularconfiguration of the mobile device 113 a-n, and this interaction may beprovided to virtual screen driver 105 for translation and delivery tothe OS 120. In this manner, media may be presented on an externaldisplay device 115 such as a high-definition television (the device ofthe invention typically being inserted into an HDMI port of thetelevision, and controlling the television using HDMI controller 108),while users interact with an operating system via virtual screen driver105, allowing users to interact with software applications 109. Thisallows users to perform actions such as installing programs, playinggames, modifying media playback configurations, selecting media forpresenting to external display device 115, or performing administrativetasks.

It should be noted that, while HDMI is used in the example of FIG. 1 andFIG. 8 (below) and is discussed throughout, other similar mediainterfaces may be used in place of HDMI, according to the invention. Forexample, DISPLAYPORT™ interfaces may be used; in such embodiments, HDMIcontroller 108 and HDMI interface 115 would be instead a DISPLAYPORT™controller 108 and a DISPLAYPORT™ interface 115; similarly, other newlyemerging high-definition media interfaces may be used in variousembodiments of the invention. It can be seen that in the arrangement ofsystem 100, dual wireless adapters may be used to allow a first wirelessadapter 101 a to manage Internet connectivity and non-latency-sensitive(or at least less critically latency-sensitive) network operations,while second wireless adapter 101 b acts as a low-latency hotspot fordirectly connected latency-sensitive devices 113 a-n, 114 a-n.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an alternate computing device(for example, a “smart TV”) 200, according to a preferred embodiment ofthe invention. According to the embodiment, computing device 200typically comprises at least a memory 11 and a processor 12 (asdescribed below, referring to FIG. 4), configured to operate a softwareoperating system, for example an operating system (OS) drawn from theset including (but not limited to) ANDROID™, APPLE IOS™, WINDOWS™, andvarious forms of LINUX™. According to the embodiment, computing device200 uses a dual wireless adapter configuration to minimize latency forlatency-sensitive applications. Specifically, according to theembodiment computing device 200 comprises a first wireless adapter 201 athat connects wirelessly to a Wi-Fi access point (WAP) 222 and via WAP222 to the Internet 220 and one or more multimedia streaming servicesources 221. First wireless adapter 201 a operates internally in anormal way, via a network stack of OS and in particular via transportlayer 204, network layer 203 and session layer 205.

According to the embodiment, computing device 200 further comprises asecond wireless network adapter 201 b that also interoperates via the OSnetwork stack 203. Second wireless adapter 201 b may connect directlywith a plurality of mobile devices 224 a-n and a plurality of wirelessaudio playback devices 223 a-n. Second wireless adapter 201 b thereforeacts as a wireless hotspot connected to devices performinglatency-sensitive applications. Computing device 200 may furthercomprise a media management subsystem 207 that manages media content.According to some embodiments, media management subsystem 207 receivesstreaming media from first wireless adapter 201 a via session layer 205,and processes the streaming media. In one aspect, media managementsubsystem 207 identifies a subset of the streaming media that is to bedelivered wirelessly to latency-sensitive devices 223 a-n, 224 a-n. Theselected media subset may then be sent via session layer 205 and soforth to second wireless adapter 201 b, which then transmits theselected streaming media to one or more of mobile devices 224 a-n andwireless audio playback devices 223 a-n.

It will be appreciated by one having ordinary skill in the art thatvarious arrangements of media streaming via second wireless adapter 201b are envisioned with the scope of the invention. For example, in oneexemplary arrangement a high-definition video stream may be receivedalong with several channels of audio; the high-definition video would beviewed on a local high-definition display 210 connected to the OS viahigh-definition display driver 209, while the audio channels would beeither played (optionally) as native audio of computing device 200 orone or more wireless audio devices 223 a-n, each of which receivesappropriate audio channels from media management subsystem 207 viasecond wireless adapter 201 b. In another aspect, virtual screen driver206 may operate a plurality of virtual (logical) interactive softwareinterfaces (“virtual screens”) and may present at least a portion ofthese screens for interaction via the plurality of mobile devices 224a-n communicating via second wireless adapter 201 b. The operatingsystem of computing device 200 may generally have a “home screen” orsimilar primary environment that may be used by a user to interact withvarious hardware or software features and functions of computing device200. Alternatively, the OS may provide a plurality of logical desktopsor other virtual screens to users via mobile devices 224 a-n.

To facilitate user interaction, virtual screen driver 206 may listen forconnections via a network or physical connection from a plurality ofmobile devices 224 a-n (such as, for example including but not limitedto, a tablet computing device or smartphone), and may present a virtualscreen derived from native OS graphics layer 208 to a device afterconnecting. A user may then interact with his mobile device normallyusing whatever means are available according to the particularconfiguration of the mobile device, and this interaction may be providedto virtual screen driver 206 for translation and delivery to the OS. Inthis manner, media may be presented on a local high-definition displaydevice 210, while users interact with an operating system via virtualscreen driver 206, allowing users to interact with softwareapplications. This allows users to perform actions such as installingprograms, playing games, modifying media playback configurations,selecting media for presenting to local display device 210, orperforming administrative tasks.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary system architecturefor low-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, illustratingthe use of a single hardware controller operating multiple radioantennas. According to the embodiment, a computing device 800 typicallycomprises at least a memory 11 and a processor 12 (as described below,referring to FIG. 4), configured to operate a software operating system,for example an operating system (OS) drawn from the set including (butnot limited to) ANDROID™ APPLE IOS™, WINDOWS™, and various forms ofLINUX™.

According to the embodiment, computing device 800 may use a dualwireless antenna configuration with a single network interfacecontroller to minimize latency for latency-sensitive applications. Forexample, according to the embodiment computing device 800 comprises afirst wireless antenna 801 a operated by a NIC 801 configured to connectwirelessly to a Wi-Fi access point (WAP) 112 or similar wireless radiocommunication, for example wireless antenna 801 a may be configured toutilize a cellular wide-area network (WAN), and via the WAP to theInternet 110 to communicate with a plurality of multimedia streamingsources 111. First wireless antenna 801 a operates internally in anormal way, via a network stack of OS and in particular via transportlayer 803, network layer 802 and session layer 804.

Further according to the embodiment, computing device 800 may furthercomprise a second wireless network antenna 801 b that is also operatedby NIC 801 and also interoperates via the OS network stack. Secondwireless antenna 801 b may connect directly with a plurality of mobiledevices 113 a-n and a plurality of wireless audio playback devices 114a-n. Second wireless antenna 801 b therefore acts as a wireless hotspotconnected to devices performing latency-sensitive applications.Computing device 800 may further comprise a media management subsystem807 that manages media content.

According to the embodiment, media management subsystem 807 may receivestreaming media from first wireless antenna 801 a via NIC 801 andsession layer 804, and process the streaming media. Media managementsubsystem 807 may then identify a subset of the streaming media that isto be delivered wirelessly to latency-sensitive devices 113, 114. Theselected media subset may then be sent via session layer 804 and soforth to second wireless antenna 801 b, which then transmits theselected streaming media to one or more of mobile devices 113 a-n andwireless audio playback devices 114 a-n. It will be appreciated by onehaving ordinary skill in the art that various arrangements of mediastreaming via second wireless antenna 801 b are envisioned with thescope of the invention. For example, in one exemplary arrangement ahigh-definition video stream may be received along with several channelsof audio; the high-definition video would be viewed on an HDMI displaydevice 115 connected via an HDMI interface controlled by HDMI controller808, such as a television or computer monitor, while the audio channelswould be either played (optionally) as native audio of computing device800 and one or more wireless audio devices 114 a-n, each of whichreceives appropriate audio channels from media management subsystem 107via second wireless antenna 801 b. In another exemplary arrangement,virtual screen driver 805 may operate a plurality of virtual (logical)interactive software interfaces (“virtual screens”) and may present atleast a portion of these screens for interaction via the plurality ofmobile devices 113 a-n communicating via second wireless antenna 801 b.

The operating system of computing device 800 may generally have a “homescreen” or similar primary environment that may be used by a user tointeract with various hardware or software features and functions ofcomputing device 800. Alternatively, the OS may provide a plurality oflogical desktops or other virtual screens to users via mobile devices113 a-n. To facilitate user interaction, virtual screen driver 805 maylisten for connections via a network or physical connection from aplurality of mobile devices 113 a-n (such as, for example including butnot limited to, a tablet computing device or smartphone), and maypresent a virtual screen derived from native OS graphics layer 806 to adevice after connecting. A user may then interact with his mobile devicenormally using whatever means are available according to the particularconfiguration of the mobile device 113 a-n, and this interaction may beprovided to virtual screen driver 805 for translation and delivery tothe OS. In this manner, media may be presented on an external displaydevice 115 such as a high-definition television (the device of theinvention typically being inserted into an HDMI port of the television,and controlling the television using HDMI controller 808), while usersinteract with an operating system via virtual screen driver 805,allowing users to interact with software applications 809. This allowsusers to perform actions such as installing programs, playing games,modifying media playback configurations, selecting media for presentingto external display device 115, or performing administrative tasks.

Description of Method Embodiments

FIG. 3 shows a method 300 for low-latency multimedia using a computingdevice having dual wireless adapters, according to a preferredembodiment of the invention. In a first step 301, a streaming multimediasession is established using the first wireless network adapter 101a/201 a. The streaming media may be obtained from a network-residentmedia source 111/221, and is transmitted via a wireless access point112/222 to which the first wireless adapter 101 a/201 a is connected. Ina second step 302, streaming media content for the session is receivedat the first wireless network adapter 101 a/201 a and passed to thetransport layer 103/204 of the operating system. In a third step 303, atleast a portion of the streamed multimedia content is sent by thetransport layer 103/204 to the second wireless adapter 101 b/201 b,which then, in a fourth step 304 transmits the media content to one ormore of the mobile devices 113/224 or wireless audio playback devices114/223 via the direct wireless connections it maintains with thosedevices.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method 900 forlow-latency multimedia using dual wireless adapters, describing the useof multiple antennas to communicate on different radio channels orfrequencies. In a first step 901, a streaming multimedia session isestablished by a network interface controller (NIC) 801 using a firstwireless network antenna 801 a. The streaming media may be obtained froma network-resident media source 111/221, and is transmitted via awireless access point 112/222 to which the first wireless antenna 801 ais connected. In a second step 902, streaming media content for thesession is received at the first wireless network antenna 801 a andpassed to the transport layer 103/204/803 of the operating system. In athird step 903, at least a portion of the streamed multimedia content issent by the transport layer 103/204/803 to the NIC 801 along withinstructions to utilize a different wireless radio frequency (forexample, a different WiFi channel or band), to be transmitted via secondwireless antenna 801 b, which then, in a fourth step 904 transmits themedia content to one or more of the mobile devices 113/224 or wirelessaudio playback devices 114/223 via the direct wireless connections itmaintains with those devices on a separate radio frequency from thestreaming session established via the first wireless network antenna 801a.

Hardware Architecture

Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may be implemented onhardware or a combination of software and hardware. For example, theymay be implemented in an operating system kernel, in a separate userprocess, in a library package bound into network applications, on aspecially constructed machine, on an application-specific integratedcircuit (ASIC), or on a network interface card.

Software/hardware hybrid implementations of at least some of theembodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on a programmablenetwork-resident machine (which should be understood to includeintermittently connected network-aware machines) selectively activatedor reconfigured by a computer program stored in memory. Such networkdevices may have multiple network interfaces that may be configured ordesigned to utilize different types of network communication protocols.A general architecture for some of these machines may be describedherein in order to illustrate one or more exemplary means by which agiven unit of functionality may be implemented. According to specificembodiments, at least some of the features or functionalities of thevarious embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented on one or moregeneral-purpose computers associated with one or more networks, such asfor example an end-user computer system, a client computer, a networkserver or other server system, a mobile computing device (e.g., tabletcomputing device, mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, or other appropriatecomputing device), a consumer electronic device, a music player, or anyother suitable electronic device, router, switch, or other suitabledevice, or any combination thereof. In at least some embodiments, atleast some of the features or functionalities of the various embodimentsdisclosed herein may be implemented in one or more virtualized computingenvironments (e.g., network computing clouds, virtual machines hosted onone or more physical computing machines, or other appropriate virtualenvironments).

Referring now to FIG. 4, there is shown a block diagram depicting anexemplary computing device 10 suitable for implementing at least aportion of the features or functionalities disclosed herein. Computingdevice 10 may be, for example, any one of the computing machines listedin the previous paragraph, or indeed any other electronic device capableof executing software- or hardware-based instructions according to oneor more programs stored in memory. Computing device 10 may be configuredto communicate with a plurality of other computing devices, such asclients or servers, over communications networks such as a wide areanetwork a metropolitan area network, a local area network, a wirelessnetwork, the Internet, or any other network, using known protocols forsuch communication, whether wireless or wired.

In one embodiment, computing device 10 includes one or more centralprocessing units (CPU) 12, one or more interfaces 15, and one or morebusses 14 (such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus). Whenacting under the control of appropriate software or firmware, CPU 12 maybe responsible for implementing specific functions associated with thefunctions of a specifically configured computing device or machine. Forexample, in at least one embodiment, a computing device 10 may beconfigured or designed to function as a server system utilizing CPU 12,local memory 11 and/or remote memory 16, and interface(s) 15. In atleast one embodiment, CPU 12 may be caused to perform one or more of thedifferent types of functions and/or operations under the control ofsoftware modules or components, which for example, may include anoperating system and any appropriate applications software, drivers, andthe like.

CPU 12 may include one or more processors 13 such as, for example, aprocessor from one of the Intel, ARM, Qualcomm, and AMD families ofmicroprocessors. In some embodiments, processors 13 may includespecially designed hardware such as application-specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), electrically erasable programmable read-only memories(EEPROMs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and so forth, forcontrolling operations of computing device 10. In a specific embodiment,a local memory 11 (such as non-volatile random access memory (RAM)and/or read-only memory (ROM), including for example one or more levelsof cached memory) may also form part of CPU 12. However, there are manydifferent ways in which memory may be coupled to system 10. Memory 11may be used for a variety of purposes such as, for example, cachingand/or storing data, programming instructions, and the like. It shouldbe further appreciated that CPU 12 may be one of a variety ofsystem-on-a-chip (SOC) type hardware that may include additionalhardware such as memory or graphics processing chips, such as a QUALCOMMSNAPDRAGON™ or SAMSUNG EXYNOS™ CPU as are becoming increasingly commonin the art, such as for use in mobile devices or integrated devices.

As used herein, the term “processor” is not limited merely to thoseintegrated circuits referred to in the art as a processor, a mobileprocessor, or a microprocessor, but broadly refers to a microcontroller,a microcomputer, a programmable logic controller, anapplication-specific integrated circuit, and any other programmablecircuit.

In one embodiment, interfaces 15 are provided as network interface cards(NICs). Generally, NICs control the sending and receiving of datapackets over a computer network; other types of interfaces 15 may forexample support other peripherals used with computing device 10. Amongthe interfaces that may be provided are Ethernet interfaces, frame relayinterfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces,graphics interfaces, and the like. In addition, various types ofinterfaces may be provided such as, for example, universal serial bus(USB), Serial, Ethernet, FIREWIRE™, THUNDERBOLT™, PCI, parallel, radiofrequency (RF), BLUETOOTH™, near-field communications (e.g., usingnear-field magnetics), 802.11 (WiFi), frame relay, TCP/IP, ISDN, fastEthernet interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, Serial ATA (SATA) orexternal SATA (ESATA) interfaces, high-definition multimedia interface(HDMI), digital visual interface (DVI), analog or digital audiointerfaces, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) interfaces, high-speedserial interface (HSSI) interfaces, Point of Sale (POS) interfaces,fiber data distributed interfaces (FDDIs), and the like. Generally, suchinterfaces 15 may include physical ports appropriate for communicationwith appropriate media. In some cases, they may also include anindependent processor (such as a dedicated audio or video processor, asis common in the art for high-fidelity A/V hardware interfaces) and, insome instances, volatile and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM).

Although the system shown in FIG. 4 illustrates one specificarchitecture for a computing device 10 for implementing one or more ofthe inventions described herein, it is by no means the only devicearchitecture on which at least a portion of the features and techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented. For example, architectures havingone or any number of processors 13 may be used, and such processors 13may be present in a single device or distributed among any number ofdevices. In one embodiment, a single processor 13 handles communicationsas well as routing computations, while in other embodiments a separatededicated communications processor may be provided. In variousembodiments, different types of features or functionalities may beimplemented in a system according to the invention that includes aclient device (such as a tablet device or smartphone running clientsoftware) and server systems (such as a server system described in moredetail below).

Regardless of network device configuration, the system of the presentinvention may employ one or more memories or memory modules (such as,for example, remote memory block 16 and local memory 11) configured tostore data, program instructions for the general-purpose networkoperations, or other information relating to the functionality of theembodiments described herein (or any combinations of the above). Programinstructions may control execution of or comprise an operating systemand/or one or more applications, for example. Memory 16 or memories 11,16 may also be configured to store data structures, configuration data,encryption data, historical system operations information, or any otherspecific or generic non-program information described herein.

Because such information and program instructions may be employed toimplement one or more systems or methods described herein, at least somenetwork device embodiments may include nontransitory machine-readablestorage media, which, for example, may be configured or designed tostore program instructions, state information, and the like forperforming various operations described herein. Examples of suchnontransitory machine-readable storage media include, but are notlimited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical mediasuch as optical disks, and hardware devices that are speciallyconfigured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-onlymemory devices (ROM), flash memory (as is common in mobile devices andintegrated systems), solid state drives (SSD) and “hybrid SSD” storagedrives that may combine physical components of solid state and hard diskdrives in a single hardware device (as are becoming increasingly commonin the art with regard to personal computers), memristor memory, randomaccess memory (RAM), and the like. It should be appreciated that suchstorage means may be integral and non-removable (such as RAM hardwaremodules that may be soldered onto a motherboard or otherwise integratedinto an electronic device), or they may be removable such as swappableflash memory modules (such as “thumb drives” or other removable mediadesigned for rapidly exchanging physical storage devices),“hot-swappable” hard disk drives or solid state drives, removableoptical storage discs, or other such removable media, and that suchintegral and removable storage media may be utilized interchangeably.Examples of program instructions include both object code, such as maybe produced by a compiler, machine code, such as may be produced by anassembler or a linker, byte code, such as may be generated by forexample a JAVA™ compiler and may be executed using a Java virtualmachine or equivalent, or files containing higher level code that may beexecuted by the computer using an interpreter (for example, scriptswritten in Python, Perl, Ruby, Groovy, or any other scripting language).

In some embodiments, systems according to the present invention may beimplemented on a standalone computing system. Referring now to FIG. 5,there is shown a block diagram depicting a typical exemplaryarchitecture of one or more embodiments or components thereof on astandalone computing system. Computing device 20 includes processors 21that may run software that carry out one or more functions orapplications of embodiments of the invention, such as for example aclient application 24. Processors 21 may carry out computinginstructions under control of an operating system 22 such as, forexample, a version of MICROSOFT WINDOWS™ operating system, APPLE OSX™ oriOS™ operating systems, some variety of the Linux operating system,ANDROID™ operating system, or the like. In many cases, one or moreshared services 23 may be operable in system 20, and may be useful forproviding common services to client applications 24. Services 23 may forexample be WINDOWS™ services, user-space common services in a Linuxenvironment, or any other type of common service architecture used withoperating system 21. Input devices 28 may be of any type suitable forreceiving user input, including for example a keyboard, touchscreen,microphone (for example, for voice input), mouse, touchpad, trackball,or any combination thereof. Output devices 27 may be of any typesuitable for providing output to one or more users, whether remote orlocal to system 20, and may include for example one or more screens forvisual output, speakers, printers, or any combination thereof. Memory 25may be random-access memory having any structure and architecture knownin the art, for use by processors 21, for example to run software.Storage devices 26 may be any magnetic, optical, mechanical, memristor,or electrical storage device for storage of data in digital form (suchas those described above, referring to FIG. 4). Examples of storagedevices 26 include flash memory, magnetic hard drive, CD-ROM, and/or thelike.

In some embodiments, systems of the present invention may be implementedon a distributed computing network, such as one having any number ofclients and/or servers. Referring now to FIG. 6, there is shown a blockdiagram depicting an exemplary architecture 30 for implementing at leasta portion of a system according to an embodiment of the invention on adistributed computing network. According to the embodiment, any numberof clients 33 may be provided. Each client 33 may run software forimplementing client-side portions of the present invention; clients maycomprise a system 20 such as that illustrated in FIG. 5. In addition,any number of servers 32 may be provided for handling requests receivedfrom one or more clients 33. Clients 33 and servers 32 may communicatewith one another via one or more electronic networks 31, which may be invarious embodiments any of the Internet, a wide area network, a mobiletelephony network (such as CDMA or GSM cellular networks), a wirelessnetwork (such as WiFi, WiMAX, LTE, and so forth), or a local areanetwork (or indeed any network topology known in the art; the inventiondoes not prefer any one network topology over any other). Networks 31may be implemented using any known network protocols, including forexample wired and/or wireless protocols.

In addition, in some embodiments, servers 32 may call external services37 when needed to obtain additional information, or to refer toadditional data concerning a particular call. Communications withexternal services 37 may take place, for example, via one or morenetworks 31. In various embodiments, external services 37 may compriseweb-enabled services or functionality related to or installed on thehardware device itself. For example, in an embodiment where clientapplications 24 are implemented on a smartphone or other electronicdevice, client applications 24 may obtain information stored in a serversystem 32 in the cloud or on an external service 37 deployed on one ormore of a particular enterprise's or user's premises.

In some embodiments of the invention, clients 33 or servers 32 (or both)may make use of one or more specialized services or appliances that maybe deployed locally or remotely across one or more networks 31. Forexample, one or more databases 34 may be used or referred to by one ormore embodiments of the invention. It should be understood by one havingordinary skill in the art that databases 34 may be arranged in a widevariety of architectures and using a wide variety of data access andmanipulation means. For example, in various embodiments one or moredatabases 34 may comprise a relational database system using astructured query language (SQL), while others may comprise analternative data storage technology such as those referred to in the artas “NoSQL” (for example, HADOOP CASSANDRA™, GOOGLE BIGTABLET™, and soforth). In some embodiments, variant database architectures such ascolumn-oriented databases, in-memory databases, clustered databases,distributed databases, or even flat file data repositories may be usedaccording to the invention. It will be appreciated by one havingordinary skill in the art that any combination of known or futuredatabase technologies may be used as appropriate, unless a specificdatabase technology or a specific arrangement of components is specifiedfor a particular embodiment herein. Moreover, it should be appreciatedthat the term “database” as used herein may refer to a physical databasemachine, a cluster of machines acting as a single database system, or alogical database within an overall database management system. Unless aspecific meaning is specified for a given use of the term “database”, itshould be construed to mean any of these senses of the word, all ofwhich are understood as a plain meaning of the term “database” by thosehaving ordinary skill in the art.

Similarly, most embodiments of the invention may make use of one or moresecurity systems 36 and configuration systems 35. Security andconfiguration management are common information technology (IT) and webfunctions, and some amount of each are generally associated with any ITor web systems. It should be understood by one having ordinary skill inthe art that any configuration or security subsystems known in the artnow or in the future may be used in conjunction with embodiments of theinvention without limitation, unless a specific security 36 orconfiguration system 35 or approach is specifically required by thedescription of any specific embodiment.

FIG. 7 shows an exemplary overview of a computer system 40 as may beused in any of the various locations throughout the system. It isexemplary of any computer that may execute code to process data. Variousmodifications and changes may be made to computer system 40 withoutdeparting from the broader scope of the system and method disclosedherein. Central processor unit (CPU) 41 is connected to bus 42, to whichbus is also connected memory 43, nonvolatile memory 44, display 47,input/output (I/O) unit 48, and network interface card (NIC) 53. I/Ounit 48 may, typically, be connected to keyboard 49, pointing device 50,hard disk 52, and real-time clock 51. NIC 53 connects to network 54,which may be the Internet or a local network, which local network may ormay not have connections to the Internet. Also shown as part of system40 is power supply unit 45 connected, in this example, to a mainalternating current (AC) supply 46. Not shown are batteries that couldbe present, and many other devices and modifications that are well knownbut are not applicable to the specific novel functions of the currentsystem and method disclosed herein. It should be appreciated that someor all components illustrated may be combined, such as in variousintegrated applications, for example Qualcomm or Samsungsystem-on-a-chip (SOC) devices, or whenever it may be appropriate tocombine multiple capabilities or functions into a single hardware device(for instance, in mobile devices such as smartphones, video gameconsoles, in-vehicle computer systems such as navigation or multimediasystems in automobiles, or other integrated hardware devices).

In various embodiments, functionality for implementing systems ormethods of the present invention may be distributed among any number ofclient and/or server components. For example, various software modulesmay be implemented for performing various functions in connection withthe present invention, and such modules may be variously implemented torun on server and/or client components.

The skilled person will be aware of a range of possible modifications ofthe various embodiments described above. Accordingly, the presentinvention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computing device for low-latency multimediausing dual wireless adapters, comprising: a processor; a memory; anetwork interface controller; a first wireless network adapter connectedto the network interface controller and to a Wi-Fi access point; asecond wireless network adapter connected to the network interfacecontroller and directly via Wi-Fi to a plurality of endpoint wirelessdevices; and a plurality of programming instructions stored in thememory and operating on the processor, wherein the plurality ofprogramming instructions, when operating on the processor, cause theprocessor to: establish, using the network interface controller, astreaming multimedia session; receive streaming multimedia in thestreaming multimedia session from the Wi-Fi access point using the firstwireless network adapter; and forward at least a portion of the receivedstreaming multimedia to the plurality of wireless endpoint devices viathe second wireless network adapter.
 2. The device of claim 1, furthercomprising a media management subsystem configured to identify a subsetof streaming media that is to be delivered wirelessly tolatency-sensitive devices.
 3. A method for low-latency multimedia usingdual wireless adapters, comprising the steps of: establishing, at anetwork interface controller on a computing device comprising at least aprocessor and a memory, a streaming multimedia session; receiving, at afirst wireless network adapter operating on the computing device andfrom the streaming multimedia session, streaming multimedia content froma Wi-Fi access point; sending at least a subset of the streamingmultimedia to a plurality of wireless endpoint devices via a Wi-Finetwork, using the second wireless network adapter.
 4. The method ofclaim 3, further comprising the step of identifying, using a mediamanagement subsystem stored in the memory and operating on the processorof the computing device, a subset of the received streaming mediacontent that is to be delivered wirelessly to latency-sensitive devices.